January 26, 2025 • 60 mins
Donald Trump's second presidential term is less than a week old and everything already seems to be coming undone. American democracy might be at a breaking point. How did the far-right militia groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers gain influence with the help of government allies, posing a grave threat to national stability? Author and journalist David Neiwert joins the pod, and provides expert insight into the radical right’s impact on our democratic experiment.
The controversial pardoning of January 6th insurrectionists signals a disturbing breakdown of the rule of law, potentially paving the way for authoritarianism. As we all grapple with widespread radicalization across the nation, we discuss the historical connections between American elements of fascism, focusing on how these ideologies have been fanned into flames by Trump's rise, and how emboldened far-right militia groups might be America's undoing.
Recommended:
The Age of Insurrection: The Radical Right's Assault on American Democracy
Alt-America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump
-------------------------
Follow Deep Dive:
Bluesky
YouTube
Email: deepdivewithshawn@gmail.com
Music:
Majestic Earth - Joystock
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I covered about 20 different Proud Boys events
between 2017 and 2019, andactually 2020, and covered a
number of other extremist eventsin the same time period and
certainly had plenty ofon-the-ground experience
(00:21):
observing these folks andlistening to them, listening to
what they were saying, listeningto you know the things that
they fantasized about.
You know, they've beenfantasizing about a civil war
for forever.
I mean since the 1990s and it'sreally reached a fever pitch.
And that's, I mean, there's areason.
They all have these AR-15s andhuge loads of ammunition, and
(00:45):
it's not so that they can killall the feral pigs in their
neighborhood, trust me, so thatthey can kill their neighbors,
and that's what they talk aboutdoing all the time.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Welcome to Deep Dive with me, sean C Fettig.
Hey folks, I'm going to let youknow up front that this is a
dark episode, but no darker thanthe state of our American
democracy.
We're about a week into Trump'ssecond presidential term and he
is doing what he promised,shock and awe, and despite
knowing this was coming, it hasbeen shocking and it has been
(01:24):
awful.
He has signed, I think I cansay, hundreds of executive
orders aimed at and this is justa small sample dismantling the
civil service, destroying theinfrastructure that administers
everything from our nationalsecurity to our health care, to
our food supply, eradicating anydiversity in public life,
sealing our southern border,renaming the Gulf of Mexico,
(01:46):
threatening war against Panamabecause why not?
And cutting off federaldisaster relief and efforts to
help states and communitiesrecover from disaster.
He's also done a couple ofthings that, taken together,
make me truly anxious about thefuture of American democracy.
One of Trump's first acts was toissue full and unconditional
pardons to all of the January6th traitors, the
(02:08):
insurrectionists.
This alone is a shockingviolation of the rule of law and
floods our streets withdangerous criminals.
But that, coupled with the factthat he has been stripping
security detail protection fromhis perceived enemies.
John Bolton and Anthony Fauciare just two of them.
People who have receivedcredible death threats suggest
(02:32):
that Trump is truly craven andis itching for violence, if not
advocating for outright civilunrest or even war.
Remember, this is the sameindividual who once led an
attempted coup, an insurrectionaimed at toppling the very
government he now controls.
He's now the president of acountry that has long stood as a
symbol of justice, equality andrule of law to the entire world
, and now he's using thathighest office not to protect
(02:56):
these ideals, but tosystematically destroy them.
Pardoning violent offenders,not because they've repented or
served justice, but becausethey're loyalists, foot soldiers
in his political crusade, is adisgusting violation of his oath
.
Removing protections fromcritics, leaving them vulnerable
to threats, harassment,violence, maybe.
(03:16):
Death is not justunconscionable, but it's cruel
and, barring the capitulation ofthe Supreme Court, criminal.
This is not the democracy wewere.
Criminal.
This is not the democracy wewere promised.
This is not the democracy weknow.
Frankly, it's just notdemocracy.
Today, I want to talk about oneparticular aspect of this
dynamic the pardoned offenders,the far-right militia groups and
(03:37):
members that have infiltratedthe highest offices of power in
the United States.
This is a broad network ofactors who see violence as a
pathway to influence, and, withTrump in office and allies in
the GOP, the guardrails thatonce restrained political
violence and safeguarded therule of law have been dismantled
.
Militia groups have a friend inthe presidency, and this is the
(04:00):
moment they've been waiting for.
What lies ahead is dark, to diginto all of this.
My guest today is journalist andauthor David Nywert, who has
dedicated his career to studyingand reporting on militia
movements in the United States.
He's written numerous books,including the Age of
Insurrection, the Radical RightsAssault on American Democracy
and Alt-America the Rise of theRadical Right in the Age of
(04:23):
Trump.
He's also the creator andauthor of the sub-stack SpyHop.
I'll drop some links in theshow notes.
All right, if you like thisepisode, or any episode, please
give it a like, share and followon your favorite podcast
platform and or subscribe to thepodcast on YouTube.
And, as always, if you have anythoughts, questions or comments
, please feel free to email meat deepdivewithshawn at gmailcom
(04:46):
.
Let's do a deep dive, david.
Thanks for being here.
How are you?
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Nice being here, sean , pleasure to meet you.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
So, look, I feel like we kind of have to start here.
So we're recording this.
On Friday, january 24th, fourdays after Donald Trump gave
full and unconditional pardonsto every single January 6th riot
or insurrectionist that wasprosecuted and convicted by a
jury of peers, and then theywere welcomed back into the
Capitol, in fact hosted byRepublican members of Congress.
Honestly, this feels like apassing of a Rubicon here, that
(05:22):
the country has enteredterritory that we won't come
back from for a very long time.
This signals not just, I think,a breakdown of the rule of law,
but it sends a very strongmessage to people in groups that
you study and you write aboutand you have for years Far right
militia members and groups andthe message is that they can
operate with impunity.
Impunity and if you couple that, you know, with just a few
(05:46):
minutes ago, trump strippedsecurity protections from
Anthony Fauci, who had securityprotection because he had
received death threats, somefrom people in these militia
groups.
So that all suggests to me thatwe have some very dark days
ahead.
But I guess, how do you seethis?
How worried are you?
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Yeah, I'm very worried, mostly because I think
all the guardrails have beenremoved and I think he wants to
drive everything over a cliff,and I think it's by design.
Authoritarians require chaosand he's trying to create as
much chaos as possible to asserthis authoritarian regime.
(06:21):
When the country's in a stateof disaster, he'll be able to
declare a state of disaster.
He'll be able to call, declarea state of insurrection, impose
martial law, military law, andunleash his brown shirts, who
are better known to us as ProudBoys and Oath Keepers, which is
who he just freed.
(06:42):
You know, he just freed theleader of the Oath
Keeperskeepers and he freed theleaders of the Proud Boys, and
those guys are unapologeticabout what they did on January
6th and they're alsounapologetic in their view that,
you know, donald Trump shouldbe should basically be a
dictator for America, theAmerica.
He should basically be adictator for America, be
(07:03):
America's dictator.
And the problem with this islook, it would be one thing if
we just had this fringe factionthat I've dealt with for 30
years, who kind of sat on theoutside of American politics.
But not only are these guys nowdeeply embedded, not just in
(07:27):
the heart of mainstream politics, but in the seats of power
itself.
And even more problematic, Ithink, is that their extremism
has spread to nearly half thepopulation.
And these are extremist beliefsthat they hold, these ideas
that they hold about whatAmerica is about and what the
Constitution says, and all ofthis, you know, is not a it's
(07:51):
definitely not a pluralisticdemocracy anymore, and they
would be glad to say that.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
I'm glad you kind of outline what you perceive
Trump's plan to be, because Istill and I don't know why I do
this, but I'm still pulling mypunches on this.
I don't want to be seen ashistrionic.
I don't want to be because Istill and I don't know why I do
this, but I'm still pulling mypunches on this.
I don't want to be seen ashistrionic.
I don't want to be seen asoverreacting, but I do believe
that Trump is agitating for, atminimum, violence and chaos.
(08:16):
But I also to the point thatyou made about invoking the
Insurrection Act.
Invoking the Insurrection Act,I think I believe that Trump is
advocating for some type ofcivil war in the United.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
States in pursuit of full power?
Yeah, yeah, no, I think it's.
I mean, I don't think it's acoincidence that it aligns with
Vladimir Putin's vision forAmerica, which has been, since
the early 2000s, this idea thatAmerica would descend into a
civil war and would break intosort of an agglomeration of
(08:53):
regional states, you know, andthis was an argument of Russian
historians back around 1999,2000.
And Putin, you know, definitelyadopted this theory and
honestly, I think that that'skind of where Trump is trying to
take us.
And I don't think it's, youknow, I don't think it's just a
(09:15):
coincidence.
The guy does everything Putinwants him to do.
Now, whether Trump himselfbelieves in this stuff or what,
but he believes ultimately thathe's the big honcho who has the
authoritarian rule and thateverybody should follow him.
You know it's all aboutworshiping him and you know it's
(09:37):
a deeply toxic place and, likeI say, it would be one thing if
he were widely despised.
But you know, no matter how youcut this, even after the man's
gone, half the country will beradicalized into this belief
system.
And how do we pull back fromthat people to return to this
(10:02):
belief in a multiracial,pluralistic democracy?
Speaker 2 (10:06):
that is actually about you know, encouraging
freedom for everyone instead ofjust freedom for white males.
So before we dig into how wegot here which is a lot of what
you've written about as well asyou know how it's playing out, I
guess I just want to askspecific to the point you just
made.
You know how we go back fromthis, I guess.
(10:27):
How much hope do you have thatwe do?
Speaker 1 (10:30):
I have good days and I have bad days.
Some days I'm very pessimistic.
You know I do think I mean.
The thing I've been dealing withfor the past 10 years is, you
know, I have a meme on my deskthat says the road to fascism is
lined with people telling youto stop overreacting.
Because I've had people tellingme to stop overreacting for the
(10:51):
last 10 years and, for thatmatter, much longer.
You know, I actually took someof this criticism to heart for a
while, but I had to alwaysrefer back to my reporting and
what I had seen, what I hadexperienced and what I had found
.
And the reason people weretelling me to stop or reacting
(11:12):
to was the conclusion that wewere headed down this road,
toward these real fascisttendencies in America that had
always been latent in ourpolitical soil and that it would
only take a really skilledpolitician to be able to pull
them out and give them freshlife.
And people say, oh, you know,yeah, yeah, this will never
(11:35):
happen, and especially for thelast 10 years, once Trump came
along, and even before that, Iwas seeing these issues come
bubbling up and people wouldtell me to stop overreacting.
(11:58):
I'm long past taking that stuffseriously anymore, because they
want to believe in thiscomforting myth that we'll
always have democracy and it'llalways be there and things will
just always be better, becausethat's how our lives have been.
It's always been there and it'shard for us to conceive of it
not being any other way, andwe're apt to mock anyone who
(12:23):
thinks that it might get bad.
So you know, and that's where alot of that comes from.
But ultimately, what I've alsofound over the years is that
Americans don't react to loomingcrises until things actually
start happening, until badthings actually happen, until
people start dying, andsometimes even then they don't
(12:46):
react.
I mean honestly, I thought wewould finally tackle this plague
of semi-automatic weaponryafter Sandy Hook and we haven't
and honestly thought that wewould tackle the rise of
far-right extremism, that peoplewould take the rise of
(13:08):
far-right extremism seriously.
Finally, after we had fouryears of Donald Trump, and
especially after January 6th andyou know, initially there was
some hope of that.
But I'll tell you what.
Authoritarianism is a powerfuldrug and it just manages to
overwhelm all of that.
(13:29):
People think ofauthoritarianism, of course, in
terms of the leaders, the peoplewho are at the top, the Trumps
and the Mussolinis and thePutins.
That's sort of the context inwhich we always think of
authoritarianism.
But the real phenomenon ofauthoritarianism is the millions
(13:51):
of people who support them.
These people would not holdpower if there were not millions
of supporters.
Now, it doesn't have to be thefull majority, it just has to be
a substantial enough number tosupport them in sort of an
international election, as Trumpfound.
And people you know what peopleare responding to is in some
(14:14):
ways, some sort of naturaltendency.
We all want to keep our countrysafe and we naturally get
somewhat annoyed with howdemocracy works or fails to work
many times, because itfrequently dithers in the face
(14:35):
of the need for action.
And that's where we've been,especially in the last 20 years
and I think a lot of people arewilling to turn to the appeal of
an authoritarian like Trump, aguy who can you know an
Alexander who can cut theGordian knot with one blow right
(14:57):
.
That's very appealing to a lotof people.
It has a lot of psychologicalappeal.
It's also a lot simpler thanthinking.
I mean, democracy requires usto think and to understand
issues on a frequently complexand deep basis.
Authoritarians just want you togo yeah, what he says.
That's all the thinking youneed to do.
(15:17):
You know that has a lot to dowith why we're at where we're at
, because there's so manymillions of people who actually
Americans do actually do findthat appealing and that's where
they went in the 2024 election.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
I agree with you that there were moments of time in
history that something horrifichas to happen to break the fever
, although I think even speakingin those terms, like saying
break the fever, just kind ofdiminishes the actual threat
we're facing.
And I agree that.
You know, sandy Hooker, take anynumber of the mass shootings,
especially those that wereclustered so, so close together,
(15:57):
you would think that therewould be some change in
consciousness at a social orcultural level, and that didn't
happen.
Social or cultural level, andthat didn't happen.
And January 6th, especially,was a moment for me that I
thought would be, or could be abreaking point and I really
think, had perhaps theysucceeded and actually hung Mike
Pence, the vice president ofthe United States, that maybe
(16:18):
that would have been a moment,right, right, but it wasn't.
And for someone like you whohas been studying this for
decades, have been in this work,for you who has been studying
this for decades, have been inthis work for decades and has
been sounding the alarm fordecades, it must feel to you
like we are just sleepwalkinginto our own undoing, because it
feels like today or January 6thwould have been a good moment
(16:38):
for some resistance there or atleast some confrontation on that
front right, and it didn'thappen and I don't see it
happening now, and to me itfeels like we have just given up
the fight on this.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Yeah, well, honestly, I don't think there's going to
be any kind of return tonormalcy as we knew it.
I don't think there can be.
I think, you know, people aredeluding themselves if they
think at the end of the fouryears, this is all just going to
be, we're gonna make this goaway.
You know, with a, with a freshelection.
I don't know that they're gonna.
(17:11):
Let us have an election.
B, I don't know that the voterswould, uh, would turn away from
, you know, trumpism, uh, in thenext election.
I think that you that, onceyou've gotten this taste of
authoritarianism, it's prettyhard to break the momentum until
it creates the inevitabledisaster that it always does,
(17:32):
because authoritarianism alwaysfails.
It causes a lot of damages andmaybe kills millions of people
in the process, but inevitablyit stumbles because it doesn't
operate in the real world.
It has to operate on itsprefabricated narratives and
they don't believe incoming datafrom realities on the ground
(17:55):
and fail to respond accordingly.
So they're constantly wanderinginto disasters, just like the
pandemic of 2020.
That was a classic example ofan authoritarian refusing to
believe facts on the ground,just blundering into a disaster,
(18:16):
and I think it'll be onprobably a larger scale next
time.
So I do think that if we'regoing to have a revival of
democracy in America, it's goingto have to be really a
different democratic regime thanthe one that's been operating
(18:38):
for the last 200 plus years,mainly because there are so many
things that went sideways underthis system that brought this
disaster upon us that I don'tthink any kind of succeeding
system will have any chance ofsuccess without, you know, these
(19:01):
complete major changeover inthe way we go about our
democracy.
One of them is that we have toseparate politics from money and
we have to no longer allowbillionaires.
The plague of extreme wealthand the incredible concentration
of power that has gotten intothese people's hands, into the
(19:26):
hands of a few men and you knowthe super wealthy and their
absolute, you know their cleardisdain for democracy is just.
I mean, it's like having tryingto have Nazis.
You know you can't have Nazisin a democracy and you can't
have billionaires either.
Not.
If you want it to function, Ithink that media has to be taken
(19:50):
out of the hands ofcorporations and put in the
hands of the public, put in thehands of the people,
employee-owned and operated, anddo away with corporate media
ownership, because clearly ourdemocratic discourse suffers.
(20:10):
Our media are in the hands ofour sources of information, are
in the hands of billionaires andoligarchs who clearly twist and
shape and censor the sort ofdiscourse that we actually are
able to have in a democracy, andthis is something that's just
(20:31):
constantly going on now.
So, yeah, I do think that thereare things that are in our
current system that led up tothis that absolutely would have
to go away and change if we wereto be able to effectively
revive democracy.
But I think that there is goingto have to be some kind of huge
(20:54):
disaster before Americans turnback to democracy and embrace it
again.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
I agree with you.
I told you in the green roombefore we started recording that
your book Age of Insurrection,which is what precipitated the
conversation we're having, it'sa tome, it's a big book but it
reads very well, and I told youthat I think this book should
read at this point, should beessential reading in civics
classes in the United States,because it does such a good job
(21:23):
of explaining the current crisis, the current threat, but also
how we got here.
So I'm wondering if you couldmaybe, maybe even in broad
strokes, or just highlight someof the bigger moments in our
most recent history or morerecent history that kind of got
us to where we are as it relatesto far-right militias and their
role in our government.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Yeah, Sure, Well, you know, of course, as you know,
the book actually has a sort ofintroductory section where I
talk about how I got into this,covering the, because they're
rioting extremists alwaysgenerate dysfunction and
(22:15):
eventually crime.
It's a really powerfully toxicmovement that destroys people's
lives, destroys families,destroys communities, and so and
I saw this, you know, with themilitia movement back in the
1990s, when we were dealing withthe militias organizing first
in Washington but reallythroughout the Northwest, and
(22:39):
then saw them organizing as wellin places like Michigan and
then joining arms with oldKlansmen down in the South, you
know, and then forming bordervigilante outfits down on the
US-Mexico border.
Those were things that, youknow, I paid attention to
(22:59):
because I knew that these arereally powerfully toxic elements
that could harm democracy, andthat was why I felt it was an
important story to begincovering.
Back in the 1990s.
I'd spent a lot of time amongthese elements, certainly, and
(23:20):
had studied neo-Nazism andfascism and things like that.
One of the things that I knewvery well was that a lot of
fascism, a lot of what we defineas fascism, actually has really
powerful American elements init that, you know, hitler was
inspired by the Jim Crow lawsand the genocide of Native
(23:42):
Americans and things like this.
There was a lot in the Americanstory that he found to be
inspirational.
That being the case, it wasalways, you know.
The question always was, youknow, you look at the history in
the 1930s, when there was asurge in neo-fascist activity,
particularly under the aegis ofthe silver shirts, and before
(24:03):
that, their predecessors werethe Ku Klux Klan, who Robert
Paxton identifies, as you know,probably one of the earliest
sort of real examples of fascism, and they preceded the brown
shirts and inspired the brownshirts.
So that was one of the thingsthat you know.
(24:24):
I knew that I always wonderedwell, why haven't we had fascism
in America?
And a lot of it has to do withthe fact that they couldn't
really find political spaceunder a democratic setup, and it
was also that we had been verylucky that we never had this
(24:47):
sort of singular, verycharismatic figure who, you know
, that person is essential tothe success of a fascist
movement, because that's theessence of authoritarianism is
to have a single great leaderaround whom the authoritarian
movement can revolve.
(25:08):
So, you know, most of us whostudied this stuff, and
particularly, you know, in the1990s, were watching these sort
of neo-fascist elements come outof the woods and try to
reassert themselves in themainstream under the guise of
the militia movement.
You know we're all wondering.
Well, will they find theircharismatic leader to go up
(25:31):
around?
You know there was some hope.
They had some hope in the 80sand 90s that David Duke would be
their character, but he was not, fortunately, and something
that I used to sit around andtalk with Chip Berlay about is,
you know, we've been reallylucky that we haven't really had
(25:51):
this charismatic figure.
And then, come 2015, and Trumpcame along and he just fulfilled
.
He just checked all the boxesand that was sort of the sign
that we were heading down areally dark road as far as I was
concerned.
And sure enough, you know, helifted the lid off the
right-wing extremism Pandora'sbox and just let all the demons
(26:15):
come flying out.
And that was right after assoon as he was elected in 2017.
You know, we saw waves of hatecrimes.
We saw huge surges inrecruitment among white
nationalist groups and militiagroups and then the formation of
these street brawling groupslike the Proud Boys and things
like that.
I could see that he wasbuilding this sort of street
(26:39):
fighting army in the form of theProud Boys and the militiamen.
I covered about 20 differentProud Boys events between 2017
and 2019, and actually 2020, andcovered a number of other
extremist events in the sametime period and certainly had
(27:03):
plenty of on-the-groundexperience observing these folks
and then listening to them,listening to what they were
saying listening to you know thethings that they fantasized
about.
You know, they've beenfantasizing about a civil war
for forever.
I mean since the 1990s and it'sreally reached a fever pitch.
And that's.
(27:23):
I mean, there's a reason theyall have these AR-15s and huge
loads of ammunition, and it'snot so that they can kill all
the feral pigs in theirneighborhood, trust me, so that
they can kill their neighbors,and that's what they talk about
doing all the time, and you know.
And then when you tell peoplethis, when you say, you know,
(27:43):
these guys want to start killingyou, they want to start killing
every liberal they can gettheir hands on.
People say, oh, you're justoverreacting, they're just
talking big.
And I go yeah, maybe.
So I mean, sometimes they arejust full of hot air.
Most of the time they are.
Most of the time they're toocowardly to actually do anything
about it.
But inevitably there are goingto be a few of them who aren't
(28:06):
that cowardly, who are actuallycapable of doing it and will
start pulling it off.
I mean, that's what we call,that's what these lone wolf
domestic terrorist attacksalways are is somebody who you
know kind of an unstable typewho takes the exhortations
seriously and walks into agrocery store in Buffalo or a
(28:29):
Walmart in El Paso and startsshooting people.
But that's what they do andwhat they really have a fantasy
about is.
Or you know a guy who walksinto the LGBTQ club in Colorado
Springs and starts gunningpeople down.
You know, those are the kindsof things that they fantasize
about and that they actuallyhope will happen.
(28:50):
You know, read Libs of TikTok'scomments.
You know, of course, libs ofTikTok doesn't actually say
these things herself she'ssmarter than that but all of her
fans and followers do.
I mean.
You just log on to her accountand see what people are chiming
in and saying.
The problem is that someonelike Trump actually eggs them on
(29:11):
.
He actually encourages them, heactually tells them that
they're empowered and he tellsthem that they're right.
And the more he does that, themore likely we are to have these
people acting out this way inreal acts, very real acts of
violence, when they invade theCNN newsroom or something like
that, which I think isinevitable.
(29:33):
Then all of these corporatemedia types are going to go wow,
we never would have imagined.
And there are going to be a lotof us who are saying actually,
a lot of us imagined thisbecause we were telling you they
were going to do this.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
I want to talk about the relationship that Trump has
with militia groups and viceversa in a minute.
But before we get there there isa very chilling passage in Age
of Insurrection that kind ofmade it clear to me in a way
that I don't think I had wrappedmy head around how these folks
think about the rest of us.
(30:07):
So I live in Washington stateand we have, as you've written
right that you know PacificNorthwest has kind of got a
pretty strong history of militiamovements and militia groups.
You know, you see them, you cankind of see them a mile away,
right, and it's easy to rollyour eyes at them and think that
these are people that are justcosplaying some type of, some
type of a power trip that youknow never really actualized for
(30:30):
them.
But this passage in your bookis essentially that you had
heard some member of one of thegroups say something like that
during the pandemic theirliberal neighbors were like
stocking up on things andbecoming like preppers because
they were afraid that they weregoing to run out of food or
toilet paper etc.
But that they were stocking upon guns because if they ever
(30:52):
needed food or things like that,they would just go and shoot
their liberal neighbors dead andtake everything and they would
just consider that shopping yeah, that was that came out.
That laid bare for me just howviolent their thought process is
and, ultimately, how they viewus, which makes the issue much
(31:14):
closer to home, literally.
I don't know if this is asurvival mechanism, but for me
it makes me a little moreparanoid.
I'm not going to lie about whoI'm living next to, you know.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
I'm not going to lie about who I'm living next to,
you know.
No, I think actually.
I mean I'm, I'm telling thepeople who, who know me and who
don't don't, who are constantlytelling me to overreact to
themselves, you know, keep theirheads on a swivel, be aware of
who their neighbors are, andwhat their?
(31:48):
activities are and be able torespond.
Make yourself able to respondto a situation where they decide
to invade your home.
I don't think we need to beparanoid about it, but I think
we should be prepared.
I don't know that it's going tohappen, but I do know that they
(32:09):
hope that it happens.
They hope that it will happen.
You know, they have a thingthat's this myth that came out
of the Turner Diaries the day ofthe rope, which is the day
where they all get the signal tounleash the violence on people
who've betrayed the nation andgo around and basically hang
(32:32):
race mixers and liberals fromthe street lamps.
And this is a scenario that waslaid out in the Turner Diaries,
which is the neo-Nazi blueprintfor the takeover of America,
written back in the 1970s, andit was a book that not only
(32:53):
inspired the Order who did thatrampage back in the 1980s.
They recently made a movieabout it that ended up kind of
finished up on Whidbey Island.
It that ended up kind offinished up on Whidbey Island.
But those guys are basicallyfollowing the blueprint of
(33:14):
Turner Diaries in their sort oframpage of terror, as well as
Timothy McVeigh.
You know, mcveigh used to goaround and sell copies of the
Turner Diaries before he blew upthe Oklahoma City building and
there have been recentvariations on it.
A guy who sort of alt-righterwho got all involved in the
neo-Nazi white nationaliststhrough the alt-right movement
(33:35):
the 2010s, wrote a book calledDay of the Rope.
That was sort of a furtherexploration of the idea that you
know what America was going tolook like after they went out
and hung all these traitors andyeah, it's very chilling to.
(33:55):
I mean, it's very worrying andyou know, one of the things
about them, of course, is thatthey their whole purpose is to
make you fearful, to make youparanoid and make you fear them.
And the truth is they reallyare a bunch of cowards who like
(34:16):
to talk loud.
But because they are a bunch ofcowards, if they get enough
critical mass, they will be gladto sort of act as a gang If
(34:39):
they have numbers, they'll act.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
I think that there is probably some real concern
let's just put it this way Iwouldn't want to live in Idaho
or Montana right now about Trumpand his relationship to the
groups, because you hadmentioned earlier that you were
always afraid of thatcharismatic leader that could
corral these quote unquotetroops Right and what that would
ultimately mean for Americandemocracy.
Irrespective of how much Trumpactually shares the same
(35:01):
ideology as as these groups door have have the same objective,
they do have some type of asymbiotic relationship here.
I guess my question is twofoldwhen did you look at Trump and
say, oh, that's the guy.
Like what was the moment that,irrespective of just his
personality being potentiallythreatening to democracy?
When did it become apparent toyou that this was the guy, and
(35:23):
when do you think it becameapparent to these militia groups
that this was their guy?
Speaker 1 (35:27):
So I would say, in the fall of 2015, I recognized
him as potentially the guy andthat's when I started putting
together a database that weeventually turned into the
investigative report that we didfor Mother Jones magazine in
October of 2016, detailing allof Trump's multifarious
(35:50):
connections to right-wingextremists.
But I started putting that,assembling that database back in
.
I think it was November.
It was around the time that hereleased his immigration plan
for his 2015-2016 campaign andthat was the moment when he
(36:13):
actually when know, all the redflags went up for me and I said,
ok, I need to start trackinghim because clearly he was
inspiring a sort of fresh roundof recruitment among white
(36:36):
nationalists and far rightextremists and particularly, I
should say, among the patriotmovement.
And I got to tell you, it stilldrives me kind of crazy that he
uses the term patriots, hisfollowers use the term patriots
all the time, and even the mediahave gotten around to
constantly refer to hisfollowers as patriots without
(36:58):
actually understanding thesignificance of that term.
That's what the militiamovement called itself in the
1990s and that's what thesepeople are.
They believe there's people whohave a very conspiratorial view
of the way the world works.
They think that the world issecretly run by a cabal of
conspirators a la the John BirchSociety.
(37:21):
I mean, it's basicallyultimately an outgrowth of John
Bircherism and that's where thiswhole worldview originated and
that's where it really beganfestering in the 1990s,
especially the more we had theInternet and there were Alex
Joneses around to spreadconspiracy theories.
And then it really took offafter 9-11, which is when the
(37:46):
real conspiracy theory cottageindustry became a major industry
and we started seeing thedegradation of journalistic
values.
Journalistic integrity is reallya dead letter now, and I say
this with great grief because Iwas an old newsroom hand.
(38:08):
Uh, I ran newsrooms for quite awhile and was in charge of, you
know, their discipline.
I was the news editor, hadseveral, a number of newsrooms
here in the northwest and youknow, when that's your job,
you're in charge of maintainingthe standards.
Uh, you're you're responsiblefor basically making sure that
the paper doesn't get sued right.
(38:29):
So I was never.
I could see that the guardrailswere deteriorating.
So when Trump came along and hestarted, he basically adopted
and adapted all of theseotmovement worldviews into his own
politics and he startedattracting all of the huge
(38:53):
levels of Patriot movementsupport and that they started
calling each other Patriots.
You know, I could see that.
That was when I knew we wereheaded in a really bad direction
.
And it still does trouble, itstill bugs the crap out of me
that people don't recognize whatthat term means, what the term
(39:13):
patriot actually signifies.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
I outside of this conversation.
I have always been reticent togo too far down this rabbit hole
because I just don't want toexist in that space.
But I think there is somethingvery clever in calling
themselves patriots, in wrappingthemselves in the flag although
that flag has becomebastardized and kind of weird
(39:37):
variations of it over the yearsbut in that, I think, to some
degree, what they're tappinginto is, you know, like an
almost like a revolutionary kindof spirit, right, and that's's
very at the heart of the originstory of the United States and
our democracy, right.
But underneath all of that runsthis undercurrent of absolute
(39:57):
authoritarianism, right, whichcuts against the revolutionary
spirit of American democracy,right.
So these are two things thatare in conflict with each other,
but you've touched on this,we've touched on this a bit in
our conversation and I don'twant to put too fine a point on
it, but I think it's probablyworth spending a minute just
honing in very specifically onwhat the objective and the goal
(40:19):
of these groups is.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
Basically, their objective is, yeah, an
autocratic system led by asingle, very right-leaning
dictator.
It's not an accident that theJohn Birch Society originated
this whole trope that America isa republic, not a democracy,
(40:42):
because they've always had thisreally obvious hostility to
democracy and the way itoperates, mainly because it
enables all of the wrong people.
As far as they're concerned,it's essentially what the Ku
Klux Klan vision for America wasback in the 1920s, which is
(41:03):
white Christian rule, and theyvery much wrapped themselves in
exactly the same way Inpatriotic bunting.
They were the all-Americanorganization.
It was America first.
That's where that slogan comesfrom is the Ku Klux Klan.
And all of these things werevery much part of what the Klan
(41:29):
was promoting, actuallybeginning in 1915.
And it didn't die out untilabout 1930 and was shortly
displaced by the Hitler-esquesilver shirts.
As far as right-wing extremismgoes and that was one of the
things why didn't the Klan grow?
Well, because it was actually ascam.
(41:50):
Inevitably, these right-wingextreme movements attract scam
artists.
You know the Klan fell apartbecause they were all ripping
each other off monetarily andthey were taking advantage of
their members, and the membersfigured it out.
You know that they stoppedpaying their dues because they
(42:13):
realized that the leadership ofthe Klan was misappropriating
their funds.
And, you know, inevitably Ithink that's probably what's
going to happen with Trump toobut because, you know, this
rubber always hits the road whenit comes to these kinds of
things eventually, but itsometimes takes quite a bit of
(42:33):
time before it gets there andthey can cause a lot of harm in
the meantime.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
Yeah, they can blow a lot of shit up in the meantime.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
Yeah, and kill a lot of people.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
Yeah, I hate that this is attributed to this guy,
but I also think that it's true.
Yeah, I hate that this isattributed to this guy, but I
also think that it's true.
There's this Joseph Goebbelsquote about democracy that built
into the design of democracy isits own demise, right,
something along those lines.
That's not an exact quote.
Clearly I think we're seeingthat American democracy, the
guardrails that were built intoit, are failing.
(43:02):
We're not a defensive democracy.
Arguably the design of Germandemocracy after the fall of Nazi
Germany is supposed to be adefensive democracy.
But they're facing some oftheir own challenges in the same
area that we are.
But I guess it does beg thequestion if you think or have
come across or seen anything andI guess it would have to almost
be at the state or local levelthat has been effective in
(43:26):
curbing, like a militia,influence or mitigating the
damage that they can do to acommunity.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
Well, definitely the best responses that I've seen
are community-based ones.
There is a rural organizingproject out of Oregon, for
example, run by a woman namedJessica Campbell, who goes
around to communities and helpsthe local people there to be
able to organize to stand up tothese right-wing extremists,
(43:59):
because most people aren't usedto having to deal with this
stuff.
Most people run for schoolboard never thinking for a day
that they're going to.
You know, in two years havesomebody screaming at them,
calling them groomers becausethey want to include some LGBTQ
texts in the school library.
You know, but that's what'sbeen happening, and to be able
(44:23):
to handle that, you know, whatactually happens, of course, is
that a lot of people get drivenoff from participating in
democracy, which just makes ourdemocracy that much thinner on
the ground, and so we need to beable to, we need to have, you
know, community-based responsesin which local people can get
(44:43):
together and link arms andprovide a sort of mutual defense
against this stuff, so that wepush back against.
You know the Chaya Raichiks wehad one there in.
You know, recently, ChayaRaichik and the Libs of Tuk-Tuk
did their thing in Edmonds,where she targeted a local
(45:07):
school district that was holdinga session for immigrants to be
prepared for the comingdeportations, and basically
these are just informationsessions on you know when you
should open your doors, when youshould cooperate with
authorities and when you shouldinsist on having a lawyer, and
(45:28):
that sort of thing, and that,you know, really is a
fundamental.
Here's how you defend yourrights.
Information set up andRightCheck tried to make it out
to be something nefarious, wherethey were looking to evade the
law and had all these peoplechiming in, of course, on her
accounts, as well as on jasonrance's account there at his
(45:52):
radio station in seattle, whoyou know like.
Well, let's just send ICE thereand arrest them all.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
And they canceled.
Speaker 1 (46:02):
They did, they canceled it.
Speaker 2 (46:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:05):
They canceled it and so we need to be able to have
the community be able to cometogether and defend those
attempts to help the communityrather than run scared from them
.
We need to find ways to.
I mean, that to me is just thefirst line of defense, but it's
also been the local action hashonestly been where I've seen us
(46:29):
actually make progress indefending democracy, because on
a national scale it's been hardto get people to understand that
our democracy is at risk.
But you know, if you see ithappening locally, it becomes
very clear.
Over in Sequim they elected aQAnon city council a few years
ago and it turned into such acluster that local people
(46:55):
realized what was happening andactually organized a political
counterattack and put them allout of office in the next
election.
And it was very effective.
And it's still the case inSequim.
You go over to Sequim and theTrumpers are not very welcome
there.
Speaker 2 (47:12):
In outlining the equation of.
You know, I guess, to somedegree, how we got here.
We have talked about Trump,we've talked about the pardoning
.
You know, I guess, to somedegree, how we got here.
We have talked about Trump,we've talked about the pardoning
, we've talked about takingsecurity away from people that
are considered enemies of thestate or enemies of Trump,
enemies of militia groups, andthen empowering militia groups
themselves.
But there's another component tothis equation, which is we have
(47:32):
two political parties, twomajor political parties in the
United States, two politicalparties, two major political
parties in the United States,and one of them, the Republican
Party, is pretty much completelyacquiesced to Trump, which
suggests that one of two verypowerful parties in the United
States that could act as a checkon some of the worst excesses
here is not.
In fact, they're probablycheerleaders for it.
(47:53):
If we consider that entireequation, then and there are
other components.
But if we consider that entireequation, then and there are
other components.
But if we consider that in thatcontext and I'm not going to
ask you to be an optimist ifyou're not feeling that way, you
can certainly feel free to be arealist here.
But what are you expecting thatwe might see over the next few
years.
Speaker 1 (48:09):
I think the only positive outcome could possibly
be, you know, seeing this wholething run aground to see
Republicans become massivelydiscredited and driven from
power, you know, and basicallyreplaced.
You know, I do think thereneeds to be a conservative
(48:31):
element at work in our bodypolitic, but that ain't it work
in our body politic, but thatain't it.
You know, I would like to thinkthat they could be replaced by
a democracy-loving, conservativeparty, but as it is, you know,
it's got to be up to theDemocratic Party, and what the
Democratic Party, of course, hasdone is tried to bring a lot of
(48:54):
older conservatives who dostill believe in democracy into
their fold.
And so we saw Kamala Harriscampaigning with Liz Cheney
right, and I view that with somedubiousness.
Frankly, I think, unfortunately, at this point, the Democratic
Party is far too acquiescent, isfar too accepting of what's
(49:20):
going on and is basicallyrolling over and begging for
belly rubs.
So, you know, the only person Isee out there who's actually
standing up to these guys andsaying no, we're not going to
play along with fascists isAlexandria Ocasio-Cortez, eoc,
and she's been pretty outspokenand Adaman doesn't back down.
(49:42):
So AOC is about the only personI can see who's actually
showing the kind of leadershipthat I would look for from an
actual Democratic, apro-Democratic party.
Everyone else is just proving sospineless that it's dismaying
when our two senators vote foran immigration act that's going
(50:04):
to basically enable attorneysgeneral in various states to
basically overwhelm federal law,they just lose me.
It's like why are you votingfor that?
Why are you supportingbasically the end of our
immigration system?
Why are you acquiescing to thisfascist takeover?
(50:28):
And Maria Cadwell are bothgoing to vote for the Lake and
Riley Act, which is reallydismaying.
But you know at least they'restanding up on some of these
cases.
But you know it's got to be aunified front and you know the
leader of the Senate Democratsis Chuck Schumer.
(50:51):
Has all this spying.
God gave a jellyfish.
Speaker 2 (50:55):
If you really look at this past election, as much as
there's this shock and awe onthe part of Trump and the
Republicans and as much asthey're claiming a mandate, it
was actually one of the closestpopular vote losses for
Democrats and they picked up aseat in the House and they lost
the Senate, primarily because ofmalapportionment.
So we're three months in andthere's a party that's like when
(51:16):
are you, when do you plan onpicking yourself up, dusting
yourself off and getting backinto the fight, because now
seems like a good time, you know.
Speaker 1 (51:22):
Yeah, yeah, no, no, kidding.
And, and unfortunately you know, a lot of this has to do.
A lot of the way Democrats arebehaving has to do with the
utter obsequiousness of thecorporate media system.
I mean corporate media nowthey're no longer.
Anybody who calls them theliberal media deserves to be
(51:46):
laughed at in their face at thispoint, because they are so
acquiescent to the right-wingagenda at this point that it's
really pathetic.
And yeah, I wouldn't want towork for any of these networks
or large papers or anything likethat myself, because, I mean, I
(52:09):
did used to write for theWashington Post and actually
when Bezos brought in the threeponchos from Murdoch Media, I
ended my association with them.
I wrote to them, canceled mysubscription and said I don't
want to be part of this BecauseI knew that these guys had foul
(52:31):
ethics and I did not want to bepart of an unethical
journalistic operation.
Turned out I was right.
Speaker 2 (52:38):
I also canceled mine, my Washington Post subscription
of an unethical journalisticoperation Turned out I was right
.
I also canceled mine, myWashington Post subscription.
So, yeah, ok, final questionyou ready for it?
Yeah, what's somethinginteresting you've been reading,
watching, listening to or doinglately?
And it doesn't have to berelated to this topic, but it
can be Well actually.
Speaker 1 (52:53):
So lately I've been reading Jessica Plushko's book
the Highest Law in the Land,which is a terrific book about
the sheriff's movement, abouthow these sovereigns, these
constitutionalist sheriffs whoI've been writing about really
for years although a lot of myhate watch pieces didn't have my
(53:15):
name on them that serve assource material for infiltrated
the ranks of law enforcement toan extent that I think they've
(53:40):
that's law enforcement's alwaysbeen one of our major guardrails
, uh, for dealing withright-wing extremists and
particularly the violent ones.
And, uh, I think that that's anincredibly weakened guardrail
right now, cause they've lawenforcement's been so
infiltrated with, uh, and so somany members of law enforcement
are fully radicalized into thisright-wing extremist belief
(54:00):
system.
You know the John Birch styleempiricism.
So I've been reading that bookand it's quite good.
I strongly recommend it toanyone.
Then I also picked up MichaelGerman's book Policing White
Supremacy.
I've known Mike for years.
He was an undercover FBI agentin the 1990s when he was the guy
(54:26):
responsible for the bust of theWashington State Militia up in
Hawkins County in 1996.
And I covered that trial andMike was the guy who kind of led
that bust.
It was actually my all-timefavorite bust story.
So he went undercover withthese guys who were holding
(54:48):
these sessions plotting thedownfall of local government.
He arranged a meeting space forthem where they could sit
around and not just talk butactually hold the lessons and
classes that they wanted to do,classes in bomb making and
things about, you know,basically primitive forms of
domestic terrorism.
But of course the meeting spacethat he set up for him was just
(55:10):
filled with cameras, videocameras and recording equipment
and so we got to see all this inthe trial all these sessions.
We didn't see the very lastsession, though, but we heard
about it.
The very last session, mike gotthem all into the warehouse and
got everybody around the table.
(55:31):
Usually it had been somebodyelse who was giving the lesson
that day.
There were various kinds oflessons, mostly on making pipe
bombs, but they got around thetable or came in the room and
said today, guys, mike's goingto say it's my turn today, so
I'm going to show you guys howto get out of handcuffs without
(55:54):
a key.
And so he gets out of this boxof handcuffs and goes around,
clicks them on everybody, andthen, as soon as everybody's in
handcuffs, he, he pulls out hispants.
Speaker 2 (56:05):
his guys, you're all under her, god I don't know why,
I didn't see where that wasgoing, but that's a great end to
that story that was the end ofthe was State Militia.
Speaker 1 (56:14):
Yeah, so, yeah.
So I'm reading Mike's book onthe how bad basically his book
is about how badly the FBI hasbotched the job of policing and
doing proper law enforcementtreatment of right-wing
extremists in their acts ofterrorism and why right-wing
(56:36):
extremists and their acts ofterrorism and why and you know,
and how they use domesticterrorism laws to not focus on
right-wing extremists butinstead use it to over-police
left-wing extremists.
Speaker 2 (56:47):
So just a little little light reading.
Speaker 1 (56:49):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, yeah, For my lightreading.
I'm reading Middlemarchactually.
Speaker 2 (56:55):
Oh, okay.
Well, there you go, but you'vealso got your sub stack, the Spy
Hop, which is a nod to orcas orkiller whales, the way they pop
out of the water, so people cancheck that out as well.
David, thanks for stopping by.
Thanks for the conversation.
Keep fighting the good fight.
Stay safe.
Speaker 1 (57:09):
Same for you, sean, and yeah, let's all link arms.
Speaker 2 (57:14):
For sure.
Speaker 1 (57:19):
That let's all link arms.
You know for sure, that's howwe're going to get through.
Speaker 2 (57:22):
this is by linking arms and saying we're going to
defend democracy.
Democracy is fragile and whenits principles are attacked by a
leader like Donald Trump, whorewards violence and silences
dissent, the threat, the dangeris clear and it's present.
Pardoning offenders emboldensextremism and stripping
(57:46):
protections from critics fuelsfear and chaos and really could
lead to blood, could lead todeath, as militia groups armed
to the teeth, legitimated,encouraged above the law and
unchained, let loose on ourcountry.
Encouraged above the law andunchained, let loose on our
country.
This is not just a politicalcrisis.
It's an existential one.
The consequences are notlimited to our institutions.
This will negatively impactcommunities and individuals.
(58:08):
The next four years at minimumare going to be rough.
We've learned from historicalincidences of democracy
collapsing, how authoritariansoperate, and we've learned how
systems fail.
Those alarms are going off.
We've also learned how citizenscan unwittingly contribute to
democratic demise.
(58:28):
Do not give in to fear orhopelessness.
Do not turn on your neighbors.
Do not be quiet in the face ofviolence and oppression.
Be vigilant, take care of eachother and don't give in.
We have to find ways to supporteach other, fight the darkness
(58:49):
and defend the values that keepus free.
All right, check back next weekfor another episode of Deep
Dive Chat soon, folks.
Thank you, thank you.
I covered about 20 different Proud Boys events
between 2017 and 2019, andactually 2020, and covered a
number of other extremist eventsin the same time period and
certainly had plenty ofon-the-ground experience
(00:21):
observing these folks andlistening to them, listening to
what they were saying, listeningto you know the things that
they fantasized about.
You know, they've beenfantasizing about a civil war
for forever.
I mean since the 1990s and it'sreally reached a fever pitch.
And that's, I mean, there's areason.
They all have these AR-15s andhuge loads of ammunition, and
(00:45):
it's not so that they can killall the feral pigs in their
neighborhood, trust me, so thatthey can kill their neighbors,
and that's what they talk aboutdoing all the time.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Welcome to Deep Dive with me, sean C Fettig.
Hey folks, I'm going to let youknow up front that this is a
dark episode, but no darker thanthe state of our American
democracy.
We're about a week into Trump'ssecond presidential term and he
is doing what he promised,shock and awe, and despite
knowing this was coming, it hasbeen shocking and it has been
(01:24):
awful.
He has signed, I think I cansay, hundreds of executive
orders aimed at and this is justa small sample dismantling the
civil service, destroying theinfrastructure that administers
everything from our nationalsecurity to our health care, to
our food supply, eradicating anydiversity in public life,
sealing our southern border,renaming the Gulf of Mexico,
(01:46):
threatening war against Panamabecause why not?
And cutting off federaldisaster relief and efforts to
help states and communitiesrecover from disaster.
He's also done a couple ofthings that, taken together,
make me truly anxious about thefuture of American democracy.
One of Trump's first acts was toissue full and unconditional
pardons to all of the January6th traitors, the
(02:08):
insurrectionists.
This alone is a shockingviolation of the rule of law and
floods our streets withdangerous criminals.
But that, coupled with the factthat he has been stripping
security detail protection fromhis perceived enemies.
John Bolton and Anthony Fauciare just two of them.
People who have receivedcredible death threats suggest
(02:32):
that Trump is truly craven andis itching for violence, if not
advocating for outright civilunrest or even war.
Remember, this is the sameindividual who once led an
attempted coup, an insurrectionaimed at toppling the very
government he now controls.
He's now the president of acountry that has long stood as a
symbol of justice, equality andrule of law to the entire world
, and now he's using thathighest office not to protect
(02:56):
these ideals, but tosystematically destroy them.
Pardoning violent offenders,not because they've repented or
served justice, but becausethey're loyalists, foot soldiers
in his political crusade, is adisgusting violation of his oath
.
Removing protections fromcritics, leaving them vulnerable
to threats, harassment,violence, maybe.
(03:16):
Death is not justunconscionable, but it's cruel
and, barring the capitulation ofthe Supreme Court, criminal.
This is not the democracy wewere.
Criminal.
This is not the democracy wewere promised.
This is not the democracy weknow.
Frankly, it's just notdemocracy.
Today, I want to talk about oneparticular aspect of this
dynamic the pardoned offenders,the far-right militia groups and
(03:37):
members that have infiltratedthe highest offices of power in
the United States.
This is a broad network ofactors who see violence as a
pathway to influence, and, withTrump in office and allies in
the GOP, the guardrails thatonce restrained political
violence and safeguarded therule of law have been dismantled
.
Militia groups have a friend inthe presidency, and this is the
(04:00):
moment they've been waiting for.
What lies ahead is dark, to diginto all of this.
My guest today is journalist andauthor David Nywert, who has
dedicated his career to studyingand reporting on militia
movements in the United States.
He's written numerous books,including the Age of
Insurrection, the Radical RightsAssault on American Democracy
and Alt-America the Rise of theRadical Right in the Age of
(04:23):
Trump.
He's also the creator andauthor of the sub-stack SpyHop.
I'll drop some links in theshow notes.
All right, if you like thisepisode, or any episode, please
give it a like, share and followon your favorite podcast
platform and or subscribe to thepodcast on YouTube.
And, as always, if you have anythoughts, questions or comments
, please feel free to email meat deepdivewithshawn at gmailcom
(04:46):
.
Let's do a deep dive, david.
Thanks for being here.
How are you?
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Nice being here, sean , pleasure to meet you.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
So, look, I feel like we kind of have to start here.
So we're recording this.
On Friday, january 24th, fourdays after Donald Trump gave
full and unconditional pardonsto every single January 6th riot
or insurrectionist that wasprosecuted and convicted by a
jury of peers, and then theywere welcomed back into the
Capitol, in fact hosted byRepublican members of Congress.
Honestly, this feels like apassing of a Rubicon here, that
(05:22):
the country has enteredterritory that we won't come
back from for a very long time.
This signals not just, I think,a breakdown of the rule of law,
but it sends a very strongmessage to people in groups that
you study and you write aboutand you have for years Far right
militia members and groups andthe message is that they can
operate with impunity.
Impunity and if you couple that, you know, with just a few
(05:46):
minutes ago, trump strippedsecurity protections from
Anthony Fauci, who had securityprotection because he had
received death threats, somefrom people in these militia
groups.
So that all suggests to me thatwe have some very dark days
ahead.
But I guess, how do you seethis?
How worried are you?
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Yeah, I'm very worried, mostly because I think
all the guardrails have beenremoved and I think he wants to
drive everything over a cliff,and I think it's by design.
Authoritarians require chaosand he's trying to create as
much chaos as possible to asserthis authoritarian regime.
(06:21):
When the country's in a stateof disaster, he'll be able to
declare a state of disaster.
He'll be able to call, declarea state of insurrection, impose
martial law, military law, andunleash his brown shirts, who
are better known to us as ProudBoys and Oath Keepers, which is
who he just freed.
(06:42):
You know, he just freed theleader of the Oath
Keeperskeepers and he freed theleaders of the Proud Boys, and
those guys are unapologeticabout what they did on January
6th and they're alsounapologetic in their view that,
you know, donald Trump shouldbe should basically be a
dictator for America, theAmerica.
He should basically be adictator for America, be
(07:03):
America's dictator.
And the problem with this islook, it would be one thing if
we just had this fringe factionthat I've dealt with for 30
years, who kind of sat on theoutside of American politics.
But not only are these guys nowdeeply embedded, not just in
(07:27):
the heart of mainstream politics, but in the seats of power
itself.
And even more problematic, Ithink, is that their extremism
has spread to nearly half thepopulation.
And these are extremist beliefsthat they hold, these ideas
that they hold about whatAmerica is about and what the
Constitution says, and all ofthis, you know, is not a it's
(07:51):
definitely not a pluralisticdemocracy anymore, and they
would be glad to say that.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
I'm glad you kind of outline what you perceive
Trump's plan to be, because Istill and I don't know why I do
this, but I'm still pulling mypunches on this.
I don't want to be seen ashistrionic.
I don't want to be because Istill and I don't know why I do
this, but I'm still pulling mypunches on this.
I don't want to be seen ashistrionic.
I don't want to be seen asoverreacting, but I do believe
that Trump is agitating for, atminimum, violence and chaos.
(08:16):
But I also to the point thatyou made about invoking the
Insurrection Act.
Invoking the Insurrection Act,I think I believe that Trump is
advocating for some type ofcivil war in the United.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
States in pursuit of full power?
Yeah, yeah, no, I think it's.
I mean, I don't think it's acoincidence that it aligns with
Vladimir Putin's vision forAmerica, which has been, since
the early 2000s, this idea thatAmerica would descend into a
civil war and would break intosort of an agglomeration of
(08:53):
regional states, you know, andthis was an argument of Russian
historians back around 1999,2000.
And Putin, you know, definitelyadopted this theory and
honestly, I think that that'skind of where Trump is trying to
take us.
And I don't think it's, youknow, I don't think it's just a
(09:15):
coincidence.
The guy does everything Putinwants him to do.
Now, whether Trump himselfbelieves in this stuff or what,
but he believes ultimately thathe's the big honcho who has the
authoritarian rule and thateverybody should follow him.
You know it's all aboutworshiping him and you know it's
(09:37):
a deeply toxic place and, likeI say, it would be one thing if
he were widely despised.
But you know, no matter how youcut this, even after the man's
gone, half the country will beradicalized into this belief
system.
And how do we pull back fromthat people to return to this
(10:02):
belief in a multiracial,pluralistic democracy?
Speaker 2 (10:06):
that is actually about you know, encouraging
freedom for everyone instead ofjust freedom for white males.
So before we dig into how wegot here which is a lot of what
you've written about as well asyou know how it's playing out, I
guess I just want to askspecific to the point you just
made.
You know how we go back fromthis, I guess.
(10:27):
How much hope do you have thatwe do?
Speaker 1 (10:30):
I have good days and I have bad days.
Some days I'm very pessimistic.
You know I do think I mean.
The thing I've been dealing withfor the past 10 years is, you
know, I have a meme on my deskthat says the road to fascism is
lined with people telling youto stop overreacting.
Because I've had people tellingme to stop overreacting for the
(10:51):
last 10 years and, for thatmatter, much longer.
You know, I actually took someof this criticism to heart for a
while, but I had to alwaysrefer back to my reporting and
what I had seen, what I hadexperienced and what I had found
.
And the reason people weretelling me to stop or reacting
(11:12):
to was the conclusion that wewere headed down this road,
toward these real fascisttendencies in America that had
always been latent in ourpolitical soil and that it would
only take a really skilledpolitician to be able to pull
them out and give them freshlife.
And people say, oh, you know,yeah, yeah, this will never
(11:35):
happen, and especially for thelast 10 years, once Trump came
along, and even before that, Iwas seeing these issues come
bubbling up and people wouldtell me to stop overreacting.
(11:58):
I'm long past taking that stuffseriously anymore, because they
want to believe in thiscomforting myth that we'll
always have democracy and it'llalways be there and things will
just always be better, becausethat's how our lives have been.
It's always been there and it'shard for us to conceive of it
not being any other way, andwe're apt to mock anyone who
(12:23):
thinks that it might get bad.
So you know, and that's where alot of that comes from.
But ultimately, what I've alsofound over the years is that
Americans don't react to loomingcrises until things actually
start happening, until badthings actually happen, until
people start dying, andsometimes even then they don't
(12:46):
react.
I mean honestly, I thought wewould finally tackle this plague
of semi-automatic weaponryafter Sandy Hook and we haven't
and honestly thought that wewould tackle the rise of
far-right extremism, that peoplewould take the rise of
(13:08):
far-right extremism seriously.
Finally, after we had fouryears of Donald Trump, and
especially after January 6th andyou know, initially there was
some hope of that.
But I'll tell you what.
Authoritarianism is a powerfuldrug and it just manages to
overwhelm all of that.
(13:29):
People think ofauthoritarianism, of course, in
terms of the leaders, the peoplewho are at the top, the Trumps
and the Mussolinis and thePutins.
That's sort of the context inwhich we always think of
authoritarianism.
But the real phenomenon ofauthoritarianism is the millions
(13:51):
of people who support them.
These people would not holdpower if there were not millions
of supporters.
Now, it doesn't have to be thefull majority, it just has to be
a substantial enough number tosupport them in sort of an
international election, as Trumpfound.
And people you know what peopleare responding to is in some
(14:14):
ways, some sort of naturaltendency.
We all want to keep our countrysafe and we naturally get
somewhat annoyed with howdemocracy works or fails to work
many times, because itfrequently dithers in the face
(14:35):
of the need for action.
And that's where we've been,especially in the last 20 years
and I think a lot of people arewilling to turn to the appeal of
an authoritarian like Trump, aguy who can you know an
Alexander who can cut theGordian knot with one blow right
(14:57):
.
That's very appealing to a lotof people.
It has a lot of psychologicalappeal.
It's also a lot simpler thanthinking.
I mean, democracy requires usto think and to understand
issues on a frequently complexand deep basis.
Authoritarians just want you togo yeah, what he says.
That's all the thinking youneed to do.
(15:17):
You know that has a lot to dowith why we're at where we're at
, because there's so manymillions of people who actually
Americans do actually do findthat appealing and that's where
they went in the 2024 election.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
I agree with you that there were moments of time in
history that something horrifichas to happen to break the fever
, although I think even speakingin those terms, like saying
break the fever, just kind ofdiminishes the actual threat
we're facing.
And I agree that.
You know, sandy Hooker, take anynumber of the mass shootings,
especially those that wereclustered so, so close together,
(15:57):
you would think that therewould be some change in
consciousness at a social orcultural level, and that didn't
happen.
Social or cultural level, andthat didn't happen.
And January 6th, especially,was a moment for me that I
thought would be, or could be abreaking point and I really
think, had perhaps theysucceeded and actually hung Mike
Pence, the vice president ofthe United States, that maybe
(16:18):
that would have been a moment,right, right, but it wasn't.
And for someone like you whohas been studying this for
decades, have been in this work,for you who has been studying
this for decades, have been inthis work for decades and has
been sounding the alarm fordecades, it must feel to you
like we are just sleepwalkinginto our own undoing, because it
feels like today or January 6thwould have been a good moment
(16:38):
for some resistance there or atleast some confrontation on that
front right, and it didn'thappen and I don't see it
happening now, and to me itfeels like we have just given up
the fight on this.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Yeah, well, honestly, I don't think there's going to
be any kind of return tonormalcy as we knew it.
I don't think there can be.
I think, you know, people aredeluding themselves if they
think at the end of the fouryears, this is all just going to
be, we're gonna make this goaway.
You know, with a, with a freshelection.
I don't know that they're gonna.
(17:11):
Let us have an election.
B, I don't know that the voterswould, uh, would turn away from
, you know, trumpism, uh, in thenext election.
I think that you that, onceyou've gotten this taste of
authoritarianism, it's prettyhard to break the momentum until
it creates the inevitabledisaster that it always does,
(17:32):
because authoritarianism alwaysfails.
It causes a lot of damages andmaybe kills millions of people
in the process, but inevitablyit stumbles because it doesn't
operate in the real world.
It has to operate on itsprefabricated narratives and
they don't believe incoming datafrom realities on the ground
(17:55):
and fail to respond accordingly.
So they're constantly wanderinginto disasters, just like the
pandemic of 2020.
That was a classic example ofan authoritarian refusing to
believe facts on the ground,just blundering into a disaster,
(18:16):
and I think it'll be onprobably a larger scale next
time.
So I do think that if we'regoing to have a revival of
democracy in America, it's goingto have to be really a
different democratic regime thanthe one that's been operating
(18:38):
for the last 200 plus years,mainly because there are so many
things that went sideways underthis system that brought this
disaster upon us that I don'tthink any kind of succeeding
system will have any chance ofsuccess without, you know, these
(19:01):
complete major changeover inthe way we go about our
democracy.
One of them is that we have toseparate politics from money and
we have to no longer allowbillionaires.
The plague of extreme wealthand the incredible concentration
of power that has gotten intothese people's hands, into the
(19:26):
hands of a few men and you knowthe super wealthy and their
absolute, you know their cleardisdain for democracy is just.
I mean, it's like having tryingto have Nazis.
You know you can't have Nazisin a democracy and you can't
have billionaires either.
Not.
If you want it to function, Ithink that media has to be taken
(19:50):
out of the hands ofcorporations and put in the
hands of the public, put in thehands of the people,
employee-owned and operated, anddo away with corporate media
ownership, because clearly ourdemocratic discourse suffers.
(20:10):
Our media are in the hands ofour sources of information, are
in the hands of billionaires andoligarchs who clearly twist and
shape and censor the sort ofdiscourse that we actually are
able to have in a democracy, andthis is something that's just
(20:31):
constantly going on now.
So, yeah, I do think that thereare things that are in our
current system that led up tothis that absolutely would have
to go away and change if we wereto be able to effectively
revive democracy.
But I think that there is goingto have to be some kind of huge
(20:54):
disaster before Americans turnback to democracy and embrace it
again.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
I agree with you.
I told you in the green roombefore we started recording that
your book Age of Insurrection,which is what precipitated the
conversation we're having, it'sa tome, it's a big book but it
reads very well, and I told youthat I think this book should
read at this point, should beessential reading in civics
classes in the United States,because it does such a good job
(21:23):
of explaining the current crisis, the current threat, but also
how we got here.
So I'm wondering if you couldmaybe, maybe even in broad
strokes, or just highlight someof the bigger moments in our
most recent history or morerecent history that kind of got
us to where we are as it relatesto far-right militias and their
role in our government.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Yeah, Sure, Well, you know, of course, as you know,
the book actually has a sort ofintroductory section where I
talk about how I got into this,covering the, because they're
rioting extremists alwaysgenerate dysfunction and
(22:15):
eventually crime.
It's a really powerfully toxicmovement that destroys people's
lives, destroys families,destroys communities, and so and
I saw this, you know, with themilitia movement back in the
1990s, when we were dealing withthe militias organizing first
in Washington but reallythroughout the Northwest, and
(22:39):
then saw them organizing as wellin places like Michigan and
then joining arms with oldKlansmen down in the South, you
know, and then forming bordervigilante outfits down on the
US-Mexico border.
Those were things that, youknow, I paid attention to
(22:59):
because I knew that these arereally powerfully toxic elements
that could harm democracy, andthat was why I felt it was an
important story to begincovering.
Back in the 1990s.
I'd spent a lot of time amongthese elements, certainly, and
(23:20):
had studied neo-Nazism andfascism and things like that.
One of the things that I knewvery well was that a lot of
fascism, a lot of what we defineas fascism, actually has really
powerful American elements init that, you know, hitler was
inspired by the Jim Crow lawsand the genocide of Native
(23:42):
Americans and things like this.
There was a lot in the Americanstory that he found to be
inspirational.
That being the case, it wasalways, you know.
The question always was, youknow, you look at the history in
the 1930s, when there was asurge in neo-fascist activity,
particularly under the aegis ofthe silver shirts, and before
(24:03):
that, their predecessors werethe Ku Klux Klan, who Robert
Paxton identifies, as you know,probably one of the earliest
sort of real examples of fascism, and they preceded the brown
shirts and inspired the brownshirts.
So that was one of the thingsthat you know.
(24:24):
I knew that I always wonderedwell, why haven't we had fascism
in America?
And a lot of it has to do withthe fact that they couldn't
really find political spaceunder a democratic setup, and it
was also that we had been verylucky that we never had this
(24:47):
sort of singular, verycharismatic figure who, you know
, that person is essential tothe success of a fascist
movement, because that's theessence of authoritarianism is
to have a single great leaderaround whom the authoritarian
movement can revolve.
(25:08):
So, you know, most of us whostudied this stuff, and
particularly, you know, in the1990s, were watching these sort
of neo-fascist elements come outof the woods and try to
reassert themselves in themainstream under the guise of
the militia movement.
You know we're all wondering.
Well, will they find theircharismatic leader to go up
(25:31):
around?
You know there was some hope.
They had some hope in the 80sand 90s that David Duke would be
their character, but he was not, fortunately, and something
that I used to sit around andtalk with Chip Berlay about is,
you know, we've been reallylucky that we haven't really had
(25:51):
this charismatic figure.
And then, come 2015, and Trumpcame along and he just fulfilled
.
He just checked all the boxesand that was sort of the sign
that we were heading down areally dark road as far as I was
concerned.
And sure enough, you know, helifted the lid off the
right-wing extremism Pandora'sbox and just let all the demons
(26:15):
come flying out.
And that was right after assoon as he was elected in 2017.
You know, we saw waves of hatecrimes.
We saw huge surges inrecruitment among white
nationalist groups and militiagroups and then the formation of
these street brawling groupslike the Proud Boys and things
like that.
I could see that he wasbuilding this sort of street
(26:39):
fighting army in the form of theProud Boys and the militiamen.
I covered about 20 differentProud Boys events between 2017
and 2019, and actually 2020, andcovered a number of other
extremist events in the sametime period and certainly had
(27:03):
plenty of on-the-groundexperience observing these folks
and then listening to them,listening to what they were
saying listening to you know thethings that they fantasized
about.
You know, they've beenfantasizing about a civil war
for forever.
I mean since the 1990s and it'sreally reached a fever pitch.
And that's.
(27:23):
I mean, there's a reason theyall have these AR-15s and huge
loads of ammunition, and it'snot so that they can kill all
the feral pigs in theirneighborhood, trust me, so that
they can kill their neighbors,and that's what they talk about
doing all the time, and you know.
And then when you tell peoplethis, when you say, you know,
(27:43):
these guys want to start killingyou, they want to start killing
every liberal they can gettheir hands on.
People say, oh, you're justoverreacting, they're just
talking big.
And I go yeah, maybe.
So I mean, sometimes they arejust full of hot air.
Most of the time they are.
Most of the time they're toocowardly to actually do anything
about it.
But inevitably there are goingto be a few of them who aren't
(28:06):
that cowardly, who are actuallycapable of doing it and will
start pulling it off.
I mean, that's what we call,that's what these lone wolf
domestic terrorist attacksalways are is somebody who you
know kind of an unstable typewho takes the exhortations
seriously and walks into agrocery store in Buffalo or a
(28:29):
Walmart in El Paso and startsshooting people.
But that's what they do andwhat they really have a fantasy
about is.
Or you know a guy who walksinto the LGBTQ club in Colorado
Springs and starts gunningpeople down.
You know, those are the kindsof things that they fantasize
about and that they actuallyhope will happen.
(28:50):
You know, read Libs of TikTok'scomments.
You know, of course, libs ofTikTok doesn't actually say
these things herself she'ssmarter than that but all of her
fans and followers do.
I mean.
You just log on to her accountand see what people are chiming
in and saying.
The problem is that someonelike Trump actually eggs them on
(29:11):
.
He actually encourages them, heactually tells them that
they're empowered and he tellsthem that they're right.
And the more he does that, themore likely we are to have these
people acting out this way inreal acts, very real acts of
violence, when they invade theCNN newsroom or something like
that, which I think isinevitable.
(29:33):
Then all of these corporatemedia types are going to go wow,
we never would have imagined.
And there are going to be a lotof us who are saying actually,
a lot of us imagined thisbecause we were telling you they
were going to do this.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
I want to talk about the relationship that Trump has
with militia groups and viceversa in a minute.
But before we get there there isa very chilling passage in Age
of Insurrection that kind ofmade it clear to me in a way
that I don't think I had wrappedmy head around how these folks
think about the rest of us.
(30:07):
So I live in Washington stateand we have, as you've written
right that you know PacificNorthwest has kind of got a
pretty strong history of militiamovements and militia groups.
You know, you see them, you cankind of see them a mile away,
right, and it's easy to rollyour eyes at them and think that
these are people that are justcosplaying some type of, some
type of a power trip that youknow never really actualized for
(30:30):
them.
But this passage in your bookis essentially that you had
heard some member of one of thegroups say something like that
during the pandemic theirliberal neighbors were like
stocking up on things andbecoming like preppers because
they were afraid that they weregoing to run out of food or
toilet paper etc.
But that they were stocking upon guns because if they ever
(30:52):
needed food or things like that,they would just go and shoot
their liberal neighbors dead andtake everything and they would
just consider that shopping yeah, that was that came out.
That laid bare for me just howviolent their thought process is
and, ultimately, how they viewus, which makes the issue much
(31:14):
closer to home, literally.
I don't know if this is asurvival mechanism, but for me
it makes me a little moreparanoid.
I'm not going to lie about whoI'm living next to, you know.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
I'm not going to lie about who I'm living next to,
you know.
No, I think actually.
I mean I'm, I'm telling thepeople who, who know me and who
don't don't, who are constantlytelling me to overreact to
themselves, you know, keep theirheads on a swivel, be aware of
who their neighbors are, andwhat their?
(31:48):
activities are and be able torespond.
Make yourself able to respondto a situation where they decide
to invade your home.
I don't think we need to beparanoid about it, but I think
we should be prepared.
I don't know that it's going tohappen, but I do know that they
(32:09):
hope that it happens.
They hope that it will happen.
You know, they have a thingthat's this myth that came out
of the Turner Diaries the day ofthe rope, which is the day
where they all get the signal tounleash the violence on people
who've betrayed the nation andgo around and basically hang
(32:32):
race mixers and liberals fromthe street lamps.
And this is a scenario that waslaid out in the Turner Diaries,
which is the neo-Nazi blueprintfor the takeover of America,
written back in the 1970s, andit was a book that not only
(32:53):
inspired the Order who did thatrampage back in the 1980s.
They recently made a movieabout it that ended up kind of
finished up on Whidbey Island.
It that ended up kind offinished up on Whidbey Island.
But those guys are basicallyfollowing the blueprint of
(33:14):
Turner Diaries in their sort oframpage of terror, as well as
Timothy McVeigh.
You know, mcveigh used to goaround and sell copies of the
Turner Diaries before he blew upthe Oklahoma City building and
there have been recentvariations on it.
A guy who sort of alt-righterwho got all involved in the
neo-Nazi white nationaliststhrough the alt-right movement
(33:35):
the 2010s, wrote a book calledDay of the Rope.
That was sort of a furtherexploration of the idea that you
know what America was going tolook like after they went out
and hung all these traitors andyeah, it's very chilling to.
(33:55):
I mean, it's very worrying andyou know, one of the things
about them, of course, is thatthey their whole purpose is to
make you fearful, to make youparanoid and make you fear them.
And the truth is they reallyare a bunch of cowards who like
(34:16):
to talk loud.
But because they are a bunch ofcowards, if they get enough
critical mass, they will be gladto sort of act as a gang If
(34:39):
they have numbers, they'll act.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
I think that there is probably some real concern
let's just put it this way Iwouldn't want to live in Idaho
or Montana right now about Trumpand his relationship to the
groups, because you hadmentioned earlier that you were
always afraid of thatcharismatic leader that could
corral these quote unquotetroops Right and what that would
ultimately mean for Americandemocracy.
Irrespective of how much Trumpactually shares the same
(35:01):
ideology as as these groups door have have the same objective,
they do have some type of asymbiotic relationship here.
I guess my question is twofoldwhen did you look at Trump and
say, oh, that's the guy.
Like what was the moment that,irrespective of just his
personality being potentiallythreatening to democracy?
When did it become apparent toyou that this was the guy, and
(35:23):
when do you think it becameapparent to these militia groups
that this was their guy?
Speaker 1 (35:27):
So I would say, in the fall of 2015, I recognized
him as potentially the guy andthat's when I started putting
together a database that weeventually turned into the
investigative report that we didfor Mother Jones magazine in
October of 2016, detailing allof Trump's multifarious
(35:50):
connections to right-wingextremists.
But I started putting that,assembling that database back in
.
I think it was November.
It was around the time that hereleased his immigration plan
for his 2015-2016 campaign andthat was the moment when he
(36:13):
actually when know, all the redflags went up for me and I said,
ok, I need to start trackinghim because clearly he was
inspiring a sort of fresh roundof recruitment among white
(36:36):
nationalists and far rightextremists and particularly, I
should say, among the patriotmovement.
And I got to tell you, it stilldrives me kind of crazy that he
uses the term patriots, hisfollowers use the term patriots
all the time, and even the mediahave gotten around to
constantly refer to hisfollowers as patriots without
(36:58):
actually understanding thesignificance of that term.
That's what the militiamovement called itself in the
1990s and that's what thesepeople are.
They believe there's people whohave a very conspiratorial view
of the way the world works.
They think that the world issecretly run by a cabal of
conspirators a la the John BirchSociety.
(37:21):
I mean, it's basicallyultimately an outgrowth of John
Bircherism and that's where thiswhole worldview originated and
that's where it really beganfestering in the 1990s,
especially the more we had theInternet and there were Alex
Joneses around to spreadconspiracy theories.
And then it really took offafter 9-11, which is when the
(37:46):
real conspiracy theory cottageindustry became a major industry
and we started seeing thedegradation of journalistic
values.
Journalistic integrity is reallya dead letter now, and I say
this with great grief because Iwas an old newsroom hand.
(38:08):
Uh, I ran newsrooms for quite awhile and was in charge of, you
know, their discipline.
I was the news editor, hadseveral, a number of newsrooms
here in the northwest and youknow, when that's your job,
you're in charge of maintainingthe standards.
Uh, you're you're responsiblefor basically making sure that
the paper doesn't get sued right.
(38:29):
So I was never.
I could see that the guardrailswere deteriorating.
So when Trump came along and hestarted, he basically adopted
and adapted all of theseotmovement worldviews into his own
politics and he startedattracting all of the huge
(38:53):
levels of Patriot movementsupport and that they started
calling each other Patriots.
You know, I could see that.
That was when I knew we wereheaded in a really bad direction
.
And it still does trouble, itstill bugs the crap out of me
that people don't recognize whatthat term means, what the term
(39:13):
patriot actually signifies.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
I outside of this conversation.
I have always been reticent togo too far down this rabbit hole
because I just don't want toexist in that space.
But I think there is somethingvery clever in calling
themselves patriots, in wrappingthemselves in the flag although
that flag has becomebastardized and kind of weird
(39:37):
variations of it over the yearsbut in that, I think, to some
degree, what they're tappinginto is, you know, like an
almost like a revolutionary kindof spirit, right, and that's's
very at the heart of the originstory of the United States and
our democracy, right.
But underneath all of that runsthis undercurrent of absolute
(39:57):
authoritarianism, right, whichcuts against the revolutionary
spirit of American democracy,right.
So these are two things thatare in conflict with each other,
but you've touched on this,we've touched on this a bit in
our conversation and I don'twant to put too fine a point on
it, but I think it's probablyworth spending a minute just
honing in very specifically onwhat the objective and the goal
(40:19):
of these groups is.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
Basically, their objective is, yeah, an
autocratic system led by asingle, very right-leaning
dictator.
It's not an accident that theJohn Birch Society originated
this whole trope that America isa republic, not a democracy,
(40:42):
because they've always had thisreally obvious hostility to
democracy and the way itoperates, mainly because it
enables all of the wrong people.
As far as they're concerned,it's essentially what the Ku
Klux Klan vision for America wasback in the 1920s, which is
(41:03):
white Christian rule, and theyvery much wrapped themselves in
exactly the same way Inpatriotic bunting.
They were the all-Americanorganization.
It was America first.
That's where that slogan comesfrom is the Ku Klux Klan.
And all of these things werevery much part of what the Klan
(41:29):
was promoting, actuallybeginning in 1915.
And it didn't die out untilabout 1930 and was shortly
displaced by the Hitler-esquesilver shirts.
As far as right-wing extremismgoes and that was one of the
things why didn't the Klan grow?
Well, because it was actually ascam.
(41:50):
Inevitably, these right-wingextreme movements attract scam
artists.
You know the Klan fell apartbecause they were all ripping
each other off monetarily andthey were taking advantage of
their members, and the membersfigured it out.
You know that they stoppedpaying their dues because they
(42:13):
realized that the leadership ofthe Klan was misappropriating
their funds.
And, you know, inevitably Ithink that's probably what's
going to happen with Trump toobut because, you know, this
rubber always hits the road whenit comes to these kinds of
things eventually, but itsometimes takes quite a bit of
(42:33):
time before it gets there andthey can cause a lot of harm in
the meantime.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
Yeah, they can blow a lot of shit up in the meantime.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
Yeah, and kill a lot of people.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
Yeah, I hate that this is attributed to this guy,
but I also think that it's true.
Yeah, I hate that this isattributed to this guy, but I
also think that it's true.
There's this Joseph Goebbelsquote about democracy that built
into the design of democracy isits own demise, right,
something along those lines.
That's not an exact quote.
Clearly I think we're seeingthat American democracy, the
guardrails that were built intoit, are failing.
(43:02):
We're not a defensive democracy.
Arguably the design of Germandemocracy after the fall of Nazi
Germany is supposed to be adefensive democracy.
But they're facing some oftheir own challenges in the same
area that we are.
But I guess it does beg thequestion if you think or have
come across or seen anything andI guess it would have to almost
be at the state or local levelthat has been effective in
(43:26):
curbing, like a militia,influence or mitigating the
damage that they can do to acommunity.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
Well, definitely the best responses that I've seen
are community-based ones.
There is a rural organizingproject out of Oregon, for
example, run by a woman namedJessica Campbell, who goes
around to communities and helpsthe local people there to be
able to organize to stand up tothese right-wing extremists,
(43:59):
because most people aren't usedto having to deal with this
stuff.
Most people run for schoolboard never thinking for a day
that they're going to.
You know, in two years havesomebody screaming at them,
calling them groomers becausethey want to include some LGBTQ
texts in the school library.
You know, but that's what'sbeen happening, and to be able
(44:23):
to handle that, you know, whatactually happens, of course, is
that a lot of people get drivenoff from participating in
democracy, which just makes ourdemocracy that much thinner on
the ground, and so we need to beable to, we need to have, you
know, community-based responsesin which local people can get
(44:43):
together and link arms andprovide a sort of mutual defense
against this stuff, so that wepush back against.
You know the Chaya Raichiks wehad one there in.
You know, recently, ChayaRaichik and the Libs of Tuk-Tuk
did their thing in Edmonds,where she targeted a local
(45:07):
school district that was holdinga session for immigrants to be
prepared for the comingdeportations, and basically
these are just informationsessions on you know when you
should open your doors, when youshould cooperate with
authorities and when you shouldinsist on having a lawyer, and
(45:28):
that sort of thing, and that,you know, really is a
fundamental.
Here's how you defend yourrights.
Information set up andRightCheck tried to make it out
to be something nefarious, wherethey were looking to evade the
law and had all these peoplechiming in, of course, on her
accounts, as well as on jasonrance's account there at his
(45:52):
radio station in seattle, whoyou know like.
Well, let's just send ICE thereand arrest them all.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
And they canceled.
Speaker 1 (46:02):
They did, they canceled it.
Speaker 2 (46:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:05):
They canceled it and so we need to be able to have
the community be able to cometogether and defend those
attempts to help the communityrather than run scared from them
.
We need to find ways to.
I mean, that to me is just thefirst line of defense, but it's
also been the local action hashonestly been where I've seen us
(46:29):
actually make progress indefending democracy, because on
a national scale it's been hardto get people to understand that
our democracy is at risk.
But you know, if you see ithappening locally, it becomes
very clear.
Over in Sequim they elected aQAnon city council a few years
ago and it turned into such acluster that local people
(46:55):
realized what was happening andactually organized a political
counterattack and put them allout of office in the next
election.
And it was very effective.
And it's still the case inSequim.
You go over to Sequim and theTrumpers are not very welcome
there.
Speaker 2 (47:12):
In outlining the equation of.
You know, I guess, to somedegree, how we got here.
We have talked about Trump,we've talked about the pardoning
.
You know, I guess, to somedegree, how we got here.
We have talked about Trump,we've talked about the pardoning
, we've talked about takingsecurity away from people that
are considered enemies of thestate or enemies of Trump,
enemies of militia groups, andthen empowering militia groups
themselves.
But there's another component tothis equation, which is we have
(47:32):
two political parties, twomajor political parties in the
United States, two politicalparties, two major political
parties in the United States,and one of them, the Republican
Party, is pretty much completelyacquiesced to Trump, which
suggests that one of two verypowerful parties in the United
States that could act as a checkon some of the worst excesses
here is not.
In fact, they're probablycheerleaders for it.
(47:53):
If we consider that entireequation, then and there are
other components.
But if we consider that entireequation, then and there are
other components.
But if we consider that in thatcontext and I'm not going to
ask you to be an optimist ifyou're not feeling that way, you
can certainly feel free to be arealist here.
But what are you expecting thatwe might see over the next few
years.
Speaker 1 (48:09):
I think the only positive outcome could possibly
be, you know, seeing this wholething run aground to see
Republicans become massivelydiscredited and driven from
power, you know, and basicallyreplaced.
You know, I do think thereneeds to be a conservative
(48:31):
element at work in our bodypolitic, but that ain't it work
in our body politic, but thatain't it.
You know, I would like to thinkthat they could be replaced by
a democracy-loving, conservativeparty, but as it is, you know,
it's got to be up to theDemocratic Party, and what the
Democratic Party, of course, hasdone is tried to bring a lot of
(48:54):
older conservatives who dostill believe in democracy into
their fold.
And so we saw Kamala Harriscampaigning with Liz Cheney
right, and I view that with somedubiousness.
Frankly, I think, unfortunately, at this point, the Democratic
Party is far too acquiescent, isfar too accepting of what's
(49:20):
going on and is basicallyrolling over and begging for
belly rubs.
So, you know, the only person Isee out there who's actually
standing up to these guys andsaying no, we're not going to
play along with fascists isAlexandria Ocasio-Cortez, eoc,
and she's been pretty outspokenand Adaman doesn't back down.
(49:42):
So AOC is about the only personI can see who's actually
showing the kind of leadershipthat I would look for from an
actual Democratic, apro-Democratic party.
Everyone else is just proving sospineless that it's dismaying
when our two senators vote foran immigration act that's going
(50:04):
to basically enable attorneysgeneral in various states to
basically overwhelm federal law,they just lose me.
It's like why are you votingfor that?
Why are you supportingbasically the end of our
immigration system?
Why are you acquiescing to thisfascist takeover?
(50:28):
And Maria Cadwell are bothgoing to vote for the Lake and
Riley Act, which is reallydismaying.
But you know at least they'restanding up on some of these
cases.
But you know it's got to be aunified front and you know the
leader of the Senate Democratsis Chuck Schumer.
(50:51):
Has all this spying.
God gave a jellyfish.
Speaker 2 (50:55):
If you really look at this past election, as much as
there's this shock and awe onthe part of Trump and the
Republicans and as much asthey're claiming a mandate, it
was actually one of the closestpopular vote losses for
Democrats and they picked up aseat in the House and they lost
the Senate, primarily because ofmalapportionment.
So we're three months in andthere's a party that's like when
(51:16):
are you, when do you plan onpicking yourself up, dusting
yourself off and getting backinto the fight, because now
seems like a good time, you know.
Speaker 1 (51:22):
Yeah, yeah, no, no, kidding.
And, and unfortunately you know, a lot of this has to do.
A lot of the way Democrats arebehaving has to do with the
utter obsequiousness of thecorporate media system.
I mean corporate media nowthey're no longer.
Anybody who calls them theliberal media deserves to be
(51:46):
laughed at in their face at thispoint, because they are so
acquiescent to the right-wingagenda at this point that it's
really pathetic.
And yeah, I wouldn't want towork for any of these networks
or large papers or anything likethat myself, because, I mean, I
(52:09):
did used to write for theWashington Post and actually
when Bezos brought in the threeponchos from Murdoch Media, I
ended my association with them.
I wrote to them, canceled mysubscription and said I don't
want to be part of this BecauseI knew that these guys had foul
(52:31):
ethics and I did not want to bepart of an unethical
journalistic operation.
Turned out I was right.
Speaker 2 (52:38):
I also canceled mine, my Washington Post subscription
of an unethical journalisticoperation Turned out I was right
.
I also canceled mine, myWashington Post subscription.
So, yeah, ok, final questionyou ready for it?
Yeah, what's somethinginteresting you've been reading,
watching, listening to or doinglately?
And it doesn't have to berelated to this topic, but it
can be Well actually.
Speaker 1 (52:53):
So lately I've been reading Jessica Plushko's book
the Highest Law in the Land,which is a terrific book about
the sheriff's movement, abouthow these sovereigns, these
constitutionalist sheriffs whoI've been writing about really
for years although a lot of myhate watch pieces didn't have my
(53:15):
name on them that serve assource material for infiltrated
the ranks of law enforcement toan extent that I think they've
(53:40):
that's law enforcement's alwaysbeen one of our major guardrails
, uh, for dealing withright-wing extremists and
particularly the violent ones.
And, uh, I think that that's anincredibly weakened guardrail
right now, cause they've lawenforcement's been so
infiltrated with, uh, and so somany members of law enforcement
are fully radicalized into thisright-wing extremist belief
(54:00):
system.
You know the John Birch styleempiricism.
So I've been reading that bookand it's quite good.
I strongly recommend it toanyone.
Then I also picked up MichaelGerman's book Policing White
Supremacy.
I've known Mike for years.
He was an undercover FBI agentin the 1990s when he was the guy
(54:26):
responsible for the bust of theWashington State Militia up in
Hawkins County in 1996.
And I covered that trial andMike was the guy who kind of led
that bust.
It was actually my all-timefavorite bust story.
So he went undercover withthese guys who were holding
(54:48):
these sessions plotting thedownfall of local government.
He arranged a meeting space forthem where they could sit
around and not just talk butactually hold the lessons and
classes that they wanted to do,classes in bomb making and
things about, you know,basically primitive forms of
domestic terrorism.
But of course the meeting spacethat he set up for him was just
(55:10):
filled with cameras, videocameras and recording equipment
and so we got to see all this inthe trial all these sessions.
We didn't see the very lastsession, though, but we heard
about it.
The very last session, mike gotthem all into the warehouse and
got everybody around the table.
(55:31):
Usually it had been somebodyelse who was giving the lesson
that day.
There were various kinds oflessons, mostly on making pipe
bombs, but they got around thetable or came in the room and
said today, guys, mike's goingto say it's my turn today, so
I'm going to show you guys howto get out of handcuffs without
(55:54):
a key.
And so he gets out of this boxof handcuffs and goes around,
clicks them on everybody, andthen, as soon as everybody's in
handcuffs, he, he pulls out hispants.
Speaker 2 (56:05):
his guys, you're all under her, god I don't know why,
I didn't see where that wasgoing, but that's a great end to
that story that was the end ofthe was State Militia.
Speaker 1 (56:14):
Yeah, so, yeah.
So I'm reading Mike's book onthe how bad basically his book
is about how badly the FBI hasbotched the job of policing and
doing proper law enforcementtreatment of right-wing
extremists in their acts ofterrorism and why right-wing
(56:36):
extremists and their acts ofterrorism and why and you know,
and how they use domesticterrorism laws to not focus on
right-wing extremists butinstead use it to over-police
left-wing extremists.
Speaker 2 (56:47):
So just a little little light reading.
Speaker 1 (56:49):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, yeah, For my lightreading.
I'm reading Middlemarchactually.
Speaker 2 (56:55):
Oh, okay.
Well, there you go, but you'vealso got your sub stack, the Spy
Hop, which is a nod to orcas orkiller whales, the way they pop
out of the water, so people cancheck that out as well.
David, thanks for stopping by.
Thanks for the conversation.
Keep fighting the good fight.
Stay safe.
Speaker 1 (57:09):
Same for you, sean, and yeah, let's all link arms.
Speaker 2 (57:14):
For sure.
Speaker 1 (57:19):
That let's all link arms.
You know for sure, that's howwe're going to get through.
Speaker 2 (57:22):
this is by linking arms and saying we're going to
defend democracy.
Democracy is fragile and whenits principles are attacked by a
leader like Donald Trump, whorewards violence and silences
dissent, the threat, the dangeris clear and it's present.
Pardoning offenders emboldensextremism and stripping
(57:46):
protections from critics fuelsfear and chaos and really could
lead to blood, could lead todeath, as militia groups armed
to the teeth, legitimated,encouraged above the law and
unchained, let loose on ourcountry.
Encouraged above the law andunchained, let loose on our
country.
This is not just a politicalcrisis.
It's an existential one.
The consequences are notlimited to our institutions.
This will negatively impactcommunities and individuals.
(58:08):
The next four years at minimumare going to be rough.
We've learned from historicalincidences of democracy
collapsing, how authoritariansoperate, and we've learned how
systems fail.
Those alarms are going off.
We've also learned how citizenscan unwittingly contribute to
democratic demise.
(58:28):
Do not give in to fear orhopelessness.
Do not turn on your neighbors.
Do not be quiet in the face ofviolence and oppression.
Be vigilant, take care of eachother and don't give in.
We have to find ways to supporteach other, fight the darkness
(58:49):
and defend the values that keepus free.
All right, check back next weekfor another episode of Deep
Dive Chat soon, folks.
Thank you, thank you.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.